Bienvenue a Mon Coeur
by Guardian Kysra
Summary: It wasn't supposed to be like this. Raven comes to terms with her newborn son. Dedicated to Emaniahilel. Strongly Implied RobinRaven.


**Notes**: This was inspired by Emaniahilel's Robin/Raven-as-parents fanfic "Fable." Her brain children Jonathon Bruce and Victoria Angela made a huge impact on me, and I asked Em if I could please do a Baby Jon fic. She quite generously gave me the green light; therefore, this fic is dedicated to her.

The title means "Welcome to my Heart."

_**Bienvenue á Mon Coeur**_

_by Kysra_

_It wasn't supposed to be like this_, her eyes burning with suppressed tears, hands shaking and flitting about uselessly arranging the bed sheets, her gown, her hair. She was supposed to be happy, proud, and excited . . . not filled with this disappointed nothing.

Her upset was Robin's upset, and she hated herself for making him worry. They had promised each other that there would be no regrets. She had fully accepted and agreed that this was the next step, the logical and natural progression of their lives; and when the time came to look upon the fruit of their mutual decision and anxious waiting, she had turned her face away, refusing to greet her child as he made his entrance into the world.

It would have been less painful if Robin had questioned her lack of interest in their new son, but he had chosen to write off her strange reaction as a symptom of exhaustion; and as the hours passed without her once asking after the infant, he had consulted the doctors. Post-partum depression is what they were calling it, but Raven knew better. They had made something so simple utterly complicated in the way some doctors do.

She was _afraid_. She had been afraid since the moment Victor had smilingly pronounced her pregnant.

And now that it was too late to change her mind, she was absolutely terrified of the journey stretched out before her. _Trigon_ had been less intimidating.

The click and whir of the door opening had Raven sitting up swiftly in the bed she had not deigned to move from since the birth nearly a half-day ago, and she barely managed to school her face into its usual serene non-expression before a plump, blonde nurse backed into the room, her deft hands pulling a wheeled cart after her. There was a clear basket perched upon the cart filled with pale blue blankets that partially hid the scrunched up, pinking face of a newborn baby boy.

"There we are," the nurse said, pausing in her entrance to glance Raven's way. "A rather big bird told me that you were feeling a bit sad, and we simply can't have that. I thought seeing this little guy might cheer you up."

The emptiness yawned into nausea as Raven swallowed hard to prevent herself from vomiting at the mere _thought_ of looking upon this tiny interloper. Her panic was well masked, however, as the nurse gingerly lifted the flailing infant with broad, well-practiced hands and carried him to Raven's side.

Clutching at her blankets, the former Titan was still and shaking as the blue and red bundle was offered. She was only slightly horrified when tears began to run down her cheeks.

"Oh, honey, it can't be as bad as all that. He's just fine, see?" The nurse offered the child again, and this time - with jaw clenched and nostrils flaring - Raven found her arms folding naturally to cradle her son close to her breast; and suddenly she could barely think of anything save this new small body of warmth emitting the faint, clean scent of baby powder beneath a hint of antiseptic.

She barely felt the nurse's happiness swirling just steps away, "Well, then, I'll leave you two to get acquainted until his next feeding time." And then the nosey nurse was gone and Raven was alone with the very cause of her earlier troubled state.

She did not breathe, frozen despite the muted tug and pull of the baby's arm trapped between her body and his. Her mouth moved, opening and closing silently as she stared, wide-eyed at the bit of forehead visible between the faint lines of his eyebrows and the miniature blue cap fitted snugly around his dark head.

"Hello Jonathon." She heard her own voice as if from a great distance and wondered in some corner of her mind that was still calm if it were possible to completely fail as a parent within seconds of meeting your child.

He yawned in answer, his bright red mouth opening into a strangely _adorable_ tiny 'o', exposing pink toothless gums and a matching tiny pink tongue.

"You have your father's mouth," her voice sounded again, this time with audible pride and the hint of a smile, and that calm corner once more echoed that she was talking to an infant who had no conception of why it was important that his father's mouth had somehow duplicated itself. Suddenly, the tension that had been building for the better part of a year began to unwind between her shoulders as her hold softened slightly and the fingers of one hand gentled his trapped arm free.

Her brow creased with intense concentration as her eyes took in every detail of him. Tufts of jet black hair peeked out from under his cap and one perfect ear was visible amidst the folds of her gown. Ruddy cheeks puffed out beneath closed eyes promising thick lashes. Those eyes had been alert and open when he had first found himself in her arms and they boasted themselves a darker blue than Robin's. Raven had a suspicion that they would darken further into a hue closer to her own shaded violet.

Shifting his slight weight (a healthy 7 pounds, 4 ounces), she allowed him to rest more fully upon her chest as she relaxed a little more against the pile of pillows at her back. "I didn't know my mother," Raven whispered. "I don't know what a mother does, how she acts, or what she's supposed to feel." She swallowed again, fighting back the now-familiar hysteria before continuing. "I . . . My mother wasn't even allowed to hold me. We never spoke to each other. I saw her once, but . . . For a long time, I didn't know what love was."

He gurgled a bit, slivers of blue peeking behind half open eyelids. She felt herself smile in response before tracing a hesitant finger across his lips and down his smooth chin. "Azar did not love me. If she had felt some affection, she needed to keep it to herself. I would have been taken away from her if the Council even suspected . . . ." Her sigh seemed to dull and hover in the still hospital room. "It was your father, uncles, and aunt who taught me to love. I don't . . . know if I have enough for you."

She didn't say that her fellow Titans had had to work for her love. She didn't say that they gave her theirs freely. She didn't say that she didn't know how to give affection without it being earned first. Her emotions needed something substantial to anchor into. This little body had done nothing but cause her discomfort from his very first stirring.

He watched her gravely, a tiny reflection of herself; and she inexplicably began to rock him in her arms. "I'm going to mess up. I'm going to make so many mistakes, and the last thing I want to do is screw up your life." Raven paused momentarily to cluck her tongue, "Your father would probably tell me that every parent makes mistakes, and that as long as we . . . love you, it will be okay; but Robin has memories of his parents still. He knows what it's like to have a family during the formative years."

The nausea was subsiding the more she talked so she kept going, finding that cuddling him brought a pleasant warmth to her body despite the persistent ache and swell spanning her middle and thighs as well as the lingering strangeness of her enlarged bosom. "I wasn't made to be a mother." The confession was heavy upon her tongue though young Jonathon Bruce seemed more interested in the seeming absence of his hands - swathed as they were behind the fabric of his onesy - than the seriousness of his mother's distress.

"I wasn't made to be _your_ mother," she reiterated unnecessarily, louder than the first time and with her eyes closed to his waving little arms and jerky kicking feet. Her hand automatically came up to straighten the swaddling blanket that had come loose from his agitated movements. "I don't know what I was thinking." And then, "It wasn't supposed to be like this." The nausea was back full force and accompanied by a piercing pain in the vicinity of her heart as her voice began to shake and her entire body trembled with the prepared vocalization of the one true cause of this crippling fear. "I should have known . . ._ I don't deserve you_."

Her central truth for the past eleven months fell upon them like a shroud though the infant seemed to shrug it off with a high pitched cough and an uncoordinated stretch before settling more firmly into her. Arms tiring, she lowered him to rest against her raised thighs. _Such a beautiful baby_, she thought critically though - admittedly - she had taken notice of only a handful of babies in her lifetime. She could barely comprehend that this one was hers, that he had been created and had entered into this world through her, even though she had been well aware of his development and had become well acquainted with the consequences his birth had wrought upon her body.

Looking down upon her son, she traced the outline of his face, ran a fingertip over the bridge and apex of his nose which she was coming to recognize as hers, feathered eager fingers over his eyes and round his ears. She then took up his covered feet and felt an irrational pang of regret at not being able to count his toes and fingers. Temporarily thwarted in her exploration, Raven tickled at his soft tummy and was rewarded with a toothless grin. Her face softened perceptibly, and she suddenly needed to feel him close again.

"I don't deserve you," she said again, tucking his little head beneath her chin as she hugged him to her, one hand supporting his bottom, the other curved against his nape, and the swaddling blanket lying forgotten in her lap. Her mind was working, thinking, coming to a decision . . . She wished Robin were there, but he had left earlier to prepare at home. "I don't, but I'm going to work to one day be worthy."

She sniffed, fighting back tears for the fifth time in as many hours and reveled in the sensation of her child burrowing into her shoulder. "No one is going to take you from me . . . not the way they took me from my mother. And you'll be free to feel and experience as much as you like . . . within reason. Your daddy will no doubt want to teach you everything he knows about tumbling and jumping and _blundering_, and I'll teach you how to meditate and center yourself so that – if you inherit certain . . . abilities – you'll know control. No one will limit you. You will not suffer the way we did."

Silence fell as the young mother held her now-sleeping infant son secure and safe against her heart; and as she unconsciously bent her head over his to administer a kiss to his crown, Raven's eyes widened, her heart twisting in her chest, and her spirit soaring with sudden knowledge as her mouth contorted into a soft, uncharacteristic smile. She breathed, "Because we love you. . . . **_I love you_**."


End file.
